Crack Baby
by Krrimarte
Summary: Fang reflects on his feelings about his mother. Post MR3. RR


Crack Baby

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They say that if you're under the influence of drugs during a pregnancy, that the child would be born with some sort of deformation, whither it be mental retardation or more noticeable physical deformities. I guess I'm the poster child for that statement.

I mean, come on, I have wings. Can't be more deformed then that...

But the only thing I know about my parents is that my mother was a crack addict. Yay for me. I mean, you'd think that I'd be... different from the other flock. And in a way I guess I am... but... not like you'd expect. I look at Gazzy and Angel and think, "What was wrong with there parents? How could they just SELL their children?" and then I'd look at Iggy, who knew his parents, and they were complete jerks, but they were 'normal' jerks, you know. Then Nudge... Well we found who we think is her mother, but we're not sure. The woman is very poor, and probably lost Nudge in the foster system. Max... She's the luckiest out of all of us. Sure, she's a test tube baby, but both egg and sperm donors actually love her like a child, like their other children. And then there's me... The crack baby.

I look in the mirror and wonder about not only my parents, but myself. What if there is something seriously wrong with me and I don't know it? Would they have taken a child with narcotics in his system? Were they expecting me to be some sort of drug-crazed homicidal angel for hire?

It's been nearly a decade since we discovered my mother's habits. Today, I'm sitting nervously outside of the maternity ward. Max is sitting there with me, squeezing my hand reassuringly. We'd found my mother. She was giving birth to twins as we spoke. I was terrified to find out how bad she was. I'm sure you're wondering how it is that we just happened to find my mother as she was giving birth? Well, it's easy to track somebody down when they're incarcerated.

Yeah, that's right, good ol' mom decided to kill her 'boyfriend' and wound up in the pen. I'd almost spoken to her on the phone but decided against it. Max did speak to her, that's how we found out about the twins... my siblings. Now for the reason we're here today: to gain custody of the minor infant's of one Onella Ventimillia. My siblings were about to become my adopted children.

I was terrified. Not about being a dad, because with out without the twins I was going to be one in a couple of months anyway as Max was already expecting.

When the lawyer had told her who I was I received a response that was less then thrilling. "Which one?"

"You're son, the one that Itex took from you." Maxwell had repeated. She looked at him like he was stupid.

"Yeah, I heard you. Now, which one?"

Apparently I was the third child she'd given up. Whatever happened to my older brothers, I don't know.

Suddenly a group of nurses came running down the hall pushing a bunch of equipment. If I was to take an uneducated guess at it, I'd say something just went wrong in the delivery room. I stood up, Max still holding my hand.

"Fang, sit down." She said calmly. I looked down at her. "You can't help the situation, and if you stay calm, you'll be out of there way. You can't make everything be okay, you can only be there to welcome them and help them." She whispered.

Oh yeah, there's something that we're not telling you... We don't know how long Onella was using for this pregnancy. She's been locked up for four months, but that doesn't mean that she was clean for long before that. Simply put, Max and I have no idea about how impaired these children are going to be. All we can do is sit, wait and pray.

"So have you thought of any names?" Max asked. We'd been debating this for a long time. Let's face it, there wasn't too many names you could put before Ride and it not sound like a roller coaster.

"Not really." I said and sat back down, running an hand through my hair.

"Well we better get cracking, they'll be here any minute!" She said with that brilliant smile of hers.

I groaned as she reached into her purse and pulled out the baby name book.

"You got any better ideas?" She asked narrowly.

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. After several horrible names, Paton, Dylan and Kyle I grabbed the book from her hands and randomly opened it to a page in the book. Then I jabbed my finger at the page twice and declared the names found. "Brion, and Michael." I said sarcastically.

"You know, those aren't bad. But what if they're girls?"

She asked. I raised a brow. "Briona and Michaela." I said sarcastically.

"Sounds good." She replied, she sounded surprised.

"What are you talking about?" I practically exclaimed.

"Those are nice names. They have a ring to them." She said with a smile.

The door opened beside us and a nurse stepped out. "Mr and Mrs. Ride?" She asked. We nodded. "Would you like to see your children?"

"Yes." I said.

"I have to warn you, they're a little small, that's not uncommon in twins." She said and led us down a hall. Finally we stepped into a room. There they were in separate incubators. Glass cages.

"Are they... okay?" I asked.

The nurse looked at me. "Mr. Ride, would it make a difference?" She asked.

"No." I said and shook my head. "I'd still love them... but are they okay?"

She smiled. "They look healthy and the blood work came back negative for drugs. We can't be a 100 percent positive. But it looks like you have two healthy children. A little boy and girl." She specified. I looked over at Max who was already looking into the incubators.

I started to step over to one of them when the nurse grabbed my sleeve. "Mr Ride, I need to tell you something about your mother. I didn't want to tell you in front of your wife..." She said. I looked at her with a raised brow. "She asked to see you." I nodded. "Can I see my children first?" I asked. She nodded.

I stood across from Max and looked at the little girl in the tube like machine. She had olive skin and dark eyes, but strange light blond hair. I raised a brow. "Blond hair?" I asked.

"For all you know, you started out with blond hair too. Babies hair darkens as they age." Max responded as she slipped her hand into the the heavy rubber gloves. she ran her fingers around the babe's face. "She's beautiful."

"Is she my sister or my daughter? I feel like I belong in West Virginia." I muttered, but smiled down at the baby.

"Fang, go see your mother. You never have to see her again for the rest of your life, but go now, if only to thank her for not contesting the custody." Max said. She was right. My mother had given us custody almost as soon as she heard that somebody wanted the children.

I followed the nurse down the hall to a recuperation room. I took a breath and opened the door. Onella was propped up, her hands chained to the stretcher bars. "Are you-?" She asked. I nodded.

She stopped for a second. "I'm glad that you found me." She said.

"I just wanted to say that my wife and I are very grateful that you didn't contest the custody." I replied coldly.

Strangely she smiled. "It's okay, I know I'm a screw-up. But... What is it that they call you, the name you're wife calls you?" She asked.

"Fang." I answered

"Fang?" She asked then shrugged. "Fang, I never did the stuff after I found out I was pregnant. And believe you me, it wasn't easy. I never had a chance, but I didn't want that for the children I brought into the world. I signed you and your brothers over to that adoption agency because I knew I couldn't keep you. I still think that I made the right choice. Imagine how bad off you'd be right now if I'd kept you! You're clean and married and happy. You're better off." She said and watched me as I absorbed all of this.

"I didn't contest the custody, because I couldn't have kept the kids. I'm a bad person for those kids, I know that, you know that, the state knows that. But the one thing that I can say is that I never handed any of my kids over to the state. I did what I reasonably could to find you a home. I tried." She said. She sounded sluggish. They must have given her some sleep meds.

"Onella... Who was my father?" I asked. It was a deep burning question.

She looked at me sadly. "You, were the only child I had with a man I loved." She said with a small smile. "His name was Eric Morgan. He died before you were born." She said. "And, Fang?" She asked.

"Yes?"

"I can see a lot of him in you. He was a wonderful, quiet man. If he'd been alive... We'd both be different." She said.

"Thank you. " I said and turned away.

"If you ever have to tell them about this... Tell them that I knew that you would be a better father to them then I could ever be a mother." She whispered drowsily. I stepped out of the room and marched into the nursery where Max sat gazing into the incubator of the little boy.

"My father's name was Eric Morgan." I said into her her. She turned to me with surprise on her face.

"You asked her?" She asked.

"Yeah. So, have you decided who to name what?" I asked.

She laughed. "Yeah, Michaela Briona and Brion Michael. We forgot about middle names." She said with a laugh.

"Well, guys... Welcome to the flock..." I whispered.

Okay, so maybe my mother wasn't as skeezy as I'd assumed she'd be. Maybe if she'd been able to kick the habit... well who knows? But after hearing her tell me why I wound up where I did, I'm not angry anymore. So what if Onella never said that she loved me, at least she wanted me to be in a home with a family. Ironically, that's exactly what she did in a way. It may have taken twenty-four years, but my home and family are a direct result of her choice to put me up for what she thought was adoption.

Who knows, maybe a few years from now, I'll watch as Brion and Michaela play with our winged baby, and think about her once in a while...


End file.
